Autonomy and Housing Accessibility Among Powered Mobility Device Users

Journal article, 2015

Objective: To describe environmental barriers, accessibility problems, and powered mobility device (PMD) users' autonomy indoors and outdoors; to determine the home environmental barriers that generated the most housing accessibility problems indoors, at entrances, and in the close exterior surroundings; and to examine personal factors and environmental components and their association with indoor and outdoor autonomy.

Method: This cross-sectional study was based on data collected from a sample of 48 PMD users with a spinal cord injury (SCI) using the Impact of Participation and Autonomy and the Housing Enabler instruments. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression were used.

Results: More years living with SCI predicted less restriction in autonomy indoors, whereas more functional limitations and accessibility problems related to entrance doors predicted more restriction in autonomy outdoors.

Conclusion: To enable optimized PMD use, practitioners must pay attention to the relationship between client autonomy and housing accessibility problems.